The Outdoor Living Digest

Outdoor living has climbed up the priority list for good reason. A well-planned garden is really just another room of your home, except this one has fresh air and better lighting. The trouble starts when summer hits its stride. Without shade, even a gorgeous yard turns into somewhere you’d rather not be by mid-afternoon.  Good...

A good pergola doesn’t shout. It just sits there, quietly turning a slab of patio into a room you actually want to use. Our professionals at Smart Shade Structures have installed it. Now comes the part people enjoy: deciding what goes in it. Furniture, lighting, a few plants. Those choices stick around for years and...

A lot of outdoor upgrades sound great in the showroom and disappoint at home. The bioclimatic pergola is one of the few that actually holds up. Spend a season under one and the old patio starts to feel like a missed opportunity. What is it, though? At its simplest, a bioclimatic pergola is a structure – freestanding...

For decades, the answer to “how do I add space and value to my home?” was simple: build an extension. Knock down a wall, pour a foundation, and brace yourself for months of dust and disruption. The wealthy homeowners we work with have started asking something different. Why build inward when the outside is already...

Spend enough time around homeowners, and you’ll notice the same thing we have: outdoor living isn’t a passing fad. People keep wanting more from the square footage they already own, and somewhere along the way the pergola became the quiet workhorse of the backyard.  When you start exploring contemporary pergola ideas, you realize how much...

A good pergola can turn a plain patio into the spot where everyone wants to sit. But shade is the part people underestimate. Picking a style you like is the easy bit. The harder work is thinking through sun angles, the structure itself, and which shade solution actually suits your climate. We’ve spent years helping...